


Disclosure

by floatingaway4



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Established Relationship, Henry Needs A Hug, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26680624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floatingaway4/pseuds/floatingaway4
Summary: There are things Alex needs to know before they get married.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 42
Kudos: 278





	Disclosure

Alex still has his airpods in when he dances through the door. He’s not expecting Henry to be home yet, so he’s surprised to see him sitting on the couch, leaning forward with his hands clasped. 

Alex doesn’t know why, exactly, but he has a bad feeling about this. 

He pulls the little pieces of plastic from his ears. “Hey, babe. You’re home early.” 

Henry finally turns to look at him and Alex _really_ doesn’t feel good about this. Henry looks sad and anxious and for some reason Alex’s treasonous brain races right to _“he’s breaking up with me fuck fuck fuck what did I do?”_

His left thumb rubs at his engagement ring, a reassuring weight on his finger. 

Henry stands up and runs a hand through his hair. “Alex, could you, erm, could you sit down?” He gestures at the sofa. 

Alex nods. His heart is flipping around like a fucking Olympic gymnast. He drops his leather satchel and sits down carefully in front of Henry, who has started pacing in front of the sofa. He looks….weird.... and …is that guilt? and Alex’s stupid, unhelpful brain leaps to “ _he cheated on me_.” 

Which is really, really stupid. When, exactly, would Henry cheat? On his 7 minute walk home from the shelter? Somewhere between the 40 or 50 texts he sent Alex today? 

Henry stands still and looks at him, then runs a hand through his hair again. “Alex.” 

Alex doesn’t answer. He feels like there’s something hard stuck in his throat. 

“Alex,” Henry tries again, and it may not matter if Henry’s breaking up with him because Alex is going to kill him first if he doesn’t fucking get to it. Not that he’s in a rush to have his life shattered into a million pieces...but what the hell is going on? 

“We’re getting married,” Henry finally continues. 

Alex nods. “Yes?” he says. He fucking hopes they still are. 

“And legally, well, we’re going to share everything equally,” Henry says. 

Alex relaxes a little. “Sure.” 

Henry is chewing on his bottom lip and Alex can see his brain racing. He takes a deep breath, finally realizing Henry isn’t trying to give him bad news, he’s just worried about something. He reaches for Henry’s hand. “What, baby?” 

Henry inhales a shaky breath, then sticks his chin out. “I need to go through my finances with you. You need to understand...I don’t want to feel like I’m hiding things from you. Ever.” 

Alex’s pulse is slowly returning to normal. “Okay.” 

Henry still looks like he might be sick. “Really?”

Alex thinks back over what Henry told him. Did he miss something? “Yeah, why not?” 

Henry nods and squeezes Alex’s hand. “We’ll probably have to go to London. I don’t think they’ll do it any other way.” 

Alex nods before he realizes he doesn’t know exactly what he’s agreeing to. “Um, who?” 

“The Crown’s accountants.” 

Alex nods again, feeling a little silly and very out of his depth. “Oh, sure. How long?” 

“Probably several hours.” 

“We’re just going to London for a few hours?” 

Henry gives him a strange look. “No, I mean, we can stay as long as you want. It will take a few hours to go through the books.” 

Alex shakes his head. Even after all this time, he still doesn't always feel like they’re speaking the same language. Alex decides to default to the one way they communicate best. 

He stands up and wraps his arms around Henry and presses a kiss to his collarbone. “Sure, whatever you say.” He pulls back to look Henry in the eye. “And sweetheart, in the future, if you need to tell me something that upsets you, maybe you should send me an email. Because you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry, love,” Henry says, but he still looks nervous. And Alex still can’t figure out why. 

They fly out Thursday afternoon after Alex makes arrangements to skip his Friday class. Late Friday morning, a slightly jetlagged Alex is walking with Henry to a conference room in Buckingham, carrying a coffee mug and his glasses. 

“Okay, so... I’ll see you in a bit,” Henry tells him at the door. 

“Wait, where the hell are you going?” Alex asks. 

“I want you to feel free to ask questions…. and, honestly, I’m not comfortable….well, you don’t need me there.” Henry has that pinched look around his mouth that Alex hasn’t seen in so long, he’d thought it was gone for good. 

“I’ll meet you in my rooms when you’re done and we’ll have dinner. Maybe we’ll go out, if you’re in the mood.” Henry smiles as he suggests it but it looks like a pale imitation of some of the usual smiles he gives Alex. 

“Okay." Alex really wants to fix whatever has gone haywire in Henry’s brain but he doesn't have time right now. He grabs Henry in a one armed hug and kisses him hard. "I love you.” 

Henry has this odd, conflicted, sad look on his face. It’s been there off and on over the last few days and Alex still can’t make sense of it. “I love you, too,” he tells Alex. He squeezes Alex’s hand like one of them is going off to war. 

Nearly six hours later, Alex walks out of the conference room, still a little stunned. His head is full of long strings of zeroes, unimaginable numbers that just became more and more ridiculous as the accountants ran through them. They explained everything to him in American dollars so he didn’t have to do the conversion math. 

It was truly unbelievable math. 

He texts Henry to find out where he is. 

**_You at your place?_ **

**_Yes_ **

**_Leaving now_ **

A PPO escorts him downstairs and onto the path to Kensington. It’s weird now, since they got engaged, because Alex has his own agents but is also entitled to royal protection. He knows the two groups have worked out some agreement. Basically, lots of people in suits follow him around. 

Henry never texts back, which is weird, and Alex goes back to thinking about what he learned today. Of course he'd known Henry was rich, being a royal and living in a palace was a dead giveaway. But now he knows the specifics, understands something about where the money all comes from. Henry has a net worth in the tens of millions, just on his own, just from his father’s money...apparently it pays to be part of an internationally renowned film franchise. He used to earn a salary from the palace before he had it diverted to his charity, and still has some of that invested. 

If you include all the land and jewelry and homes and artwork Henry has access to as a royal, and will eventually inherit, the numbers soar into the billions. Of course, those things will never truly belong to either of them, they’re property of the Crown, but Henry will inherit them on paper, at least. The townhouse is in both of their names, since Henry insisted Alex’s name be added to the lease. That adds another six million at the moment. He sees now why Henry didn’t even flinch when Alex asked about helping to pay for it. After what he just saw, six million dollars seems like a drop in an insanely huge bucket. 

Alex makes it to the palace gardens and realizes what a funny landmark in their relationship this is. He remembers one of the first meaningful conversations he and Henry had was about Henry trying to refuse the crown’s money. How eager Henry was to text Alex during finance meetings with Philip. How he jokingly threatened to strangle himself with his own tie….the look on Henry’s face that night in the museum as he contemplated the things his ancestors stole...how stomach-churning this whole topic is for Henry.

Alex stops suddenly, as though he’s hit a brick wall. The security agent looks around for a threat but Alex just holds up one hand. He thinks about the sick, conflicted looks Henry has been giving him all week. The way he keeps looking at Alex like something is about to go horribly wrong. 

  
  


Enough that he thought Henry was going to break up with…

_Shit._

Henry thinks Alex is going to break up _with him_. 

He wants to run up the steps, but he knows security frowns on that, even for royal fiancés. Instead, he bounces up them two at a time, sprinting down the hall and banging on Henry’s door before he remembers he really doesn’t have to knock. 

“Henry? Babe?” He pushes the door open and peers in nearly every room until he ends up where he should’ve started, in the music room. Henry spins himself around on the piano bench when Alex comes in. He jumps up and Alex can’t stand the resigned look on his face. 

Alex walks slowly over to him, grabs him by the shirt, and shakes him once, hard. “Henry, sweetheart, it does not matter to me.” 

Henry doesn’t meet his gaze so Alex gently takes his face in his hands. “It doesn’t change anything. Why on earth would you think it would? Did you really think I’d resent you, that I’d hate you?” 

Henry starts to say something but Alex pops up on his toes for a kiss. “Honey, I know who you are. I know who I’m marrying. I love you because of it and in spite of it. I would love you if you were one of the richest men on earth, which you may be, by the way, and I would love you if you had nothing. I do not care. I _promise_.” 

Henry’s eyes are damp. He reaches up to take Alex’s hands. “I just thought...I was afraid that seeing all the gory details, all the land that shouldn’t be ours, all the things we took,” he sighs, “...that when you thought about connecting that legacy to your name, to your family’s name...I was afraid you might have second thoughts.”

Alex stares at the love of his life and wonders if he’ll ever completely understand where this insecurity comes from. “Jesus Christ on a cracker, come here,” and he kisses the stupid words out of Henry’s mouth. “First of all, _you_ didn’t do any of those things. You are a good, good man. And that is why I love you.” He kisses Henry again and wraps him in his arms. “Second of all, you and me, we’re going to change things. We’re going to use all that and make it stand for something good, right?” 

Henry nods, a look of wild relief on his beautiful face. The pinched look is finally gone, banished to wherever it went the first time Alex got rid of the damn thing. He holds Alex tightly to him and rocks them both back and forth a bit. ”So... you still want to marry me?” Henry asks. 

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” Alex tilts his head to the side. ”What about you?” 

Henry pretends to think, which makes Alex laugh. “Oh, I very much want to marry you,” he whispers, and nuzzles the side of Alex’s smiling face. 

Alex jabs his fingers into Henry’s sides. “I mean, do you know how much _pro bono_ work I’ll be able to do if I let you be my sugar daddy?” 

Henry blushes a deep red. “Alex...you...I would never see you as--”

Alex rolls his eyes. “I was kidding, jeez." He kisses Henry again. It’s the only reliable way to shut him up. Alex pulls back and takes a breath. "So, you said something about dinner?” 

Henry nods. “Want to go out? I could take you to--”

“Actually, you know what I want?” 

Henry shakes his head, but he’s willing to give Alex anything. No matter how expensive or extravagant or hard to obtain….

Twenty minutes later they’re sitting on the curb across the street from the falafel stand, in dark glasses and hoodies, their security people hovering around at a reasonable distance and looking annoyed with the whole situation. Alex sucks down a drink of soda from his styrofoam cup. “You were right, babe, this is amazing.” He pops the lid off to swallow a mouthful of ice and sets the cup back on the sidewalk next to him. 

Henry looks at the nearly empty wax paper in Alex’s hands. “Do you want another one?”

Alex shrugs. “Can we afford it?” 

“You’re going to be a right arse about this, aren’t you?” but Henry is grinning at him. 

A woman in a suit and dark glasses passes them in a hurry, her obviously expensive heels clicking on the sidewalk. She’s on the phone with someone, spitting out orders as she speed walks toward the end of the road. As she passes Alex, she drops a pound note in his cup. 

Shocked, Alex looks at Henry, then at the woman, hurrying away from them. “Hey!” he yells, but she’s already most of the way down the block. Alex fishes out the damp bill and shows it to Henry. “Well, that was weird.” 

Henry shrugs and tilts his head down the street in the other direction. “Actually, there’s a shelter a few blocks from here. When it’s full, the homeless sleep in the parks or in doorways. Some of them ask for money, so I guess she thought...” 

Alex looks at Henry, then down at the last bite of his falafel, then back at Henry, the meaning in his glance obvious. 

Henry feels bad that he never thought of it before. He nods at their bodyguards. “If they don’t like this, they’re really going to hate this next part.” He stands and reaches for Alex’s hand, pulling him up off the low curb, and they cross over to the stand together. 

“Can we get, like, 50 falafel sandwiches?” Alex asks.

The teenage kid running the stand looks at them like they’re fucking with him. “Seriously?” 

Alex nods. “We can wait.” He elbows his fiancé. “Pay the man, sweetie.” Henry does, after he rolls his eyes at Alex. 

“You’ve adjusted to this rather quickly,” Henry mutters under his breath. 

Alex flashes him a smile and Henry can’t help but melt a little. 

He really would give Alex anything. 

In the dusky evening light, two anonymous men quietly hand out food to any homeless people they come across, until their arms are empty. 

Holding hands and walking home, Alex is quiet until they get to the palace. He turns to look at Henry with tears in his eyes. “That didn’t feel like enough.”

Henry nods. “I know. There are organizations that work with them to find them homes. But Kensington has one of the highest populations of homeless in the city.” He tenderly pushes Alex’s hood off his head. “If you’d like, darling, we could call them tomorrow and see if we can make a donation.” He looks hesitant, like he knows he’s not doing nearly enough. “It’s hardly going to fix hundreds of years of systemic oppression at once, but it's a start.”

Alex attacks Henry’s face with kisses, running his hands up and down Henry’s back. He pulls back and shakes his head in amazement. “Oh, sweetheart, you always know the perfect thing to say.” He tugs at Henry’s hand and leads them into the palace. “Come on, let's go work on more ways to spend your family’s money.” 

**_(Reuters) September 20, 2023_ **

_Prince Henry and his husband cut the ribbon today on Gabriel’s Place, a homeless resource center situated in the shadow of Kensington Palace. According to a spokesperson, this is “more than a shelter, it’s meant to provide those who are struggling with the resources to get back on their feet.” In addition to providing food and housing to those in immediate need, the center’s services include job coaching, mental health and substance abuse counseling, and parenting education. Child care will be provided at no cost for families involved with the program._

_The Queen had no comment._

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Alex's (my) philanthropy kink at work again. 
> 
> In researching this, I skimmed the surface of the British Royal family's finances, at least the numbers they release to the public. It is truly mindboggling.


End file.
